A century ago, the Komagata Maru arrived in Vancouver and challenged racist policies

Archival photo of some of the 376 Punjabis, mostly Sikhs, aboard the Komagata Maru in Vancouver Harbour in 1914. After two months on board, they were refused entry to Canada and were turned away.

One hundred years ago Friday, the Komagata Maru arrived in Burrard Inlet.

The Japanese tramp steamer carried 1,500 tons of coal, and 376 would-be immigrants from the Punjab in India.

White Vancouverites were alarmed.

“HINDU INVADERS NOW IN THE CITY HARBOUR ON KOMAGATA MARU,” screamed a front-page headline in The Vancouver Sun.

In fact, most of the passengers were Sikh, not Hindu. But few would ever set foot on Canadian soil.

The federal government refused to let the ship land, and the ship languished in the harbour for two months.

The passengers went on a hunger strike, trying to force the government to accept them. When it looked like the ship might sail to Japan, they seized the vessel from its Japanese crew.

The government didn’t blink. Eventually it sent a warship, the HMCS Rainbow, to force the ship to leave.

Thousands of Vancouverites lined the shores of Coal Harbour anticipating a battle, but the Komagata Maru sailed away peacefully July 21.

Unfortunately, the voyage didn’t end peacefully. When the ship reached Budge Budge, near Calcutta, police opened fire and 19 passengers were killed.

A century later, the Komagata Maru episode is viewed as one of the most infamous examples of racism in Canadian history.

“It seems to me to be a defining moment in the history of the South Asian community, and the history of Canada,” said Ujjal Dosanjh, who became Canada’s first South Asian premier in 2000.

“The enormity of the event touches you, it grips you when you think about 376 people waiting on that ship for two months and then being sent back, under the shadow of the HMCS Rainbow.”

The British were leery of the passengers on the Komagata Maru because they thought they were connected with the Ghadar Party, which promoted India’s independence.

“The British were now afraid that these people were now radicalized to the extent they could pose a danger to the stability of the Punjab region,” said Dosanjh.

“And that’s why they were welcomed with guns. So in India, it’s a very important chapter in the independence movement.”

The fears of many white Canadians of the era are summed up in a John Innes cartoon that ran in The Sun June 26, 1914, titled “Will The Dyke Hold?”

In this case, the dike was Canada’s immigration laws, which stood between Canada and a tsunami labelled “Flood of Oriental Labor.” If you look closely, the crest of the tsunami looks like an angry man in a turban.

The Canadian side of the dike reads “Population 8,000,0000;” the “Oriental” side reads “300,000,000.”

Immigration to British Columbia surged after 1900 — Vancouver’s population went from 27,000 in 1901 to 100,000 in 1911. But there was tension over Asian immigration.

“Canada was seen as a white man’s country,” explains Ali Kazami, author of Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru (Douglas and MacIntyre, 2012).

“(That lasted) pretty much from Confederation until 1967. If you look at the immigration pattern, that bears it out,” Kazami said in an interview.

On Sept. 7, 1907, a meeting of the Asiatic Exclusion League turned ugly and whites trashed Chinatown and Japantown. The spark for the meeting was the looming arrival of the Canadian Pacific ship Monteagle with a load of Asian immigrants (901 South Asians, 149 Chinese and 115 Japanese).

MacKenzie King was dispatched from Ottawa by Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier to head a Royal Commission to look into the riot.

The federal government wound up making reparations to the Chinese and Japanese communities. But it also decided something had to be done to stop Asian immigration.

To stem the flow of Chinese immigrants, Canada had implemented a head tax as far back as 1885. But India was part of the British Empire, which made stopping immigrants trickier.

“And there was no such thing as Canadian citizenship at the time, there was no such thing as Indian citizenship. There was no such thing as an Indian flag, or a Canadian flag, the flag that flew in both countries was the Union Jack.

“So there was this promise that British fair play and justice applied to everybody, equally.”

Canada got around this by introducing “Continuous Voyage” orders-in-council in 1908, which stated that immigrants had to come directly from their home country.

The legislation worked. Kazami said 2,623 Indian immigrants applied to enter Canada in 1907-8; in 1908-9, the number dropped to six.

But eventually more people sought to immigrate. On Oct. 13, 1913, 39 Sikhs arrived in Victoria on the Panama Maru, which had sailed from Hong Kong. They were detained, but hired Vancouver lawyer Edward Bird, who argued that inconsistencies in the Continuous Voyage order made it invalid. B.C.’s Chief Justice Gordon Hunter agreed, and the 39 men were allowed to land.

The federal government quickly rewrote the orders in council. But a Sikh businessman named Gurdit Singh decided to force the issue, booking the Komagata Maru for a trip from Hong Kong through Shanghai and Yokohama to Vancouver.

The ship left Yokohama May 3 with 340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims and 12 Hindus on board. It arrived in Victoria on May 21, and arrived in Vancouver in the early morning of Saturday, May 23.

It caused quite a stir.

“The greatest precautions are about to be taken by the superintendent of immigration and his officers to prevent any of the passengers from setting foot on shore,” the Sun reported.

Photographer Leonard Frank was allowed aboard, where he took a now-famous photo of Gurdit Singh and the passengers that ran on the front page of The Province May 26.

The press was not sympathetic. Vancouver World editor L.D. Taylor was famously liberal, but wrote a front-page editorial stating “East Indians cannot be made organic entities in western life. Those that have been admitted to British Columbia are so many artificial limbs on the body politic.”

A Sun editorial on May 27 was even more blunt: “We do not want the Hindus in this country, and we do not propose to allow them to come in.”

Three passengers were allowed to land on May 28 because they were returning to British Columbia, and another 19 were eventually allowed to come ashore.

But immigration authorities wouldn’t let the other 354 passengers land. For a couple of weeks, immigration wouldn’t even let their lawyer, Bird, to come on board the ship to discuss what to do.

A Shore Committee was formed by South Asians to support the passengers, raising $15,000 to charter the ship when Gurdit Singh’s funds ran low. Much of the money was raised at a May 31 meeting the Sun headlined “Hindus Vent Rage Against Canada.” “The speakers poured out malediction and anathema against the Canadian government and the Canadian people, in the Punjabi language, which is especially adapted to envenomed speaking,” the Sun reported.

When provisions started to run low, the passengers went on a hunger strike from June 4 to 7. Newspapers reported the Japanese crew had been ordered to return to Japan by its owners June 20, but the passengers wouldn’t let them sail.

The South Asian community had another meeting June 21 where The Sun reported speakers “preached sedition and treason.” Vancouver Mayor Truman Baxter and Conservative cabinet minister H.H. Stevens held a rival meeting June 23 where an overflow crowd of 2,000 “unanimously” adopted a resolution to immediately deport the passengers.

Lawyer Bird decided to press for admittance to Canada of one passenger, Munshi Singh, but the Court of Appeal rejected the request July 6.

Still, the Komagata Maru remained in Burrard Inlet. The tug Sea Lion was dispatched July 19 to push the ship out to sea, but the passengers showered it with chunks of coal and it was forced to retreat.

The federal government decided to act, bringing the navy cruiser HMCS Rainbow into Burrard Inlet. Aboard the Komagata Maru the passengers were reported to be gearing for a battle, but after negotiations between the government and the passengers, about 8 p.m. July 21, the Komagata Maru steamed away.

“No Blood Is Spilt Persuading Hindus to Leave Vancouver,” The Sun proclaimed the following day.

But there was blood spilled in the local South Asian community, when two Sikhs who were believed to be government informants were murdered. A third suspected informant, Bela Singh, was cornered at a temple and shot his way out, killing two.

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